There and Back Again
by LilyWhite22
Summary: This was bullshit. She did not sign up for this. In no way imaginable did she volunteer for this level of absolute shit. And now she's stuck here, in fantasy hillbilly hell, so Thedas had better tighten their seat belts, because this is going to be one wild fucking ride. (Or in which an alien somehow has the bad luck to become inquisitor)
1. Chapter 1

Ida was not having a good day. Her ship's systems had glitched (this was ridiculous, her systems never glitched, something must be wrong with this planet), and she was in the middle of fucking nowhere. Scrunching her eyes together, she leaned forward, and mashed her face on the console buttons, absentmindedly hoping that she would somehow activate some unknown command sequence, or possibly activate the ship's AI, which had shut down entering the atmosphere.

She cracked an eye open to observe the results, and when nothing happened, she slid it closed, and once more mashed her face against the buttons, this time groaning before sliding off of her seat and onto the floor. She groaned again, thumping her head against the metal, hoping maybe she'd shake her brain into doing something useful. After laying there for a few minutes, she realized exactly how cold the floor was, and peeled herself off.

"Well," she said, "sitting around isn't helping anyone. Also, I really need to stop talking to myself, it's a terrible habit. Well, when you're not deep in dark space, in between galaxies with nothing to do except talk to a sassy little shit of an AI, I suppose it's alright." While mumbling to herself, Ida had managed to get herself off of the floor. Idly standing there for a few seconds, she was hit with the realization she should probably start packing her bag and go explore, as she was probably going to be stuck here for some period of time, seeing as her ship was rebooting.

Staring at the array of things she had, from knicknacks and crumpled up clothing strewn across the floor, weapons of mass destruction and various medicinal paraphernalia, to the truly staggering amount of house plants she kept everywhere (and by everywhere, she meant every available horizontal surface). She pondered exactly what she should take with her to fit in with the minimal amount of suspicion. 'Thank god for planning ahead.'

She considered her choices briefly, before electing to take along her trusty dual dagger set (in their holsters on her arms), which she really hoped wouldn't become locked up again, as she would be unable to get the damn things off without assistance, let alone use the daggers locked in them.

Returning to her mental checklist, she added an easy-to-hide medi-kit for situations in which she couldn't bring out the tech, a few odds-and-ends that could be useful, a collapsable bladed staff, and a sturdy, nondescript satchel, which would hopefully be enough to tide her along until she could make her way back. Best case scenario, the AI would reboot and figure out what caused them to glitch as she entered this planet's orbit, and she'd be back on track within a month. Worst case, her ship would be permanently grounded, and she'd have to send out a distress signal to one of the galaxy's locals she had contacts with. Either way, she'd have quite the wait ahead of her. 'May as well start documenting this planet while I'm here, get some brownie points with the guild.'

This was one of the times she was abundantly glad she was a shapeshifter, and though the skill was always useful, this was a situation she was extra glad she could change shape.

Remembering the style of clothing she had observed on the area's locals, she shifted herself into some thick cream-coloured leggings, faded green tunic, a fur-lined jacket, grey gloves, and some sturdy boots, and styled her formerly bright blue hair into a braided, dark brown bun (couldn't have her hair in the way, after all), before covering her hair and face with a thick, lined shawl.

Pausing, she considered it for a second, before taking out her piercings, and got rid of her visible tattoos, incase she was ever in a situation in which her attire would be a bit much.

Hefting her satchel across her shoulder,and pulling her gloves on, she set her ship into stealth mode, with a life-repelling field around it, just to make extra-sure nobody would find anything (though she doubted anyone would, in the middle of nowhere, though they probably did see her ship crash).

Quickly putting in a command to make sure that the ship would water the plants while she was gone, she took one last look around herself, trying to remember if she had forgotten anything vital. Running through her mental checklist and finding nothing missing, she squinted, shielded her eyes as she opened the ramp to the blinding daylight outside, and descended. The entrance let out a hiss of air as it closed behind her, sealing shut.

Throwing her head back and letting out a groan at all the snow around her, she began crunching and grumbling her way towards the main road (or at least this world's attempt at it), heading towards some kind of temple, gigantic and magnificent compared to its surroundings. Most days, she would have turned into some type of bird, or animal, but she needed to get used to this body, and the environment.

'Figures. No matter what planet I'm on, there's still some head religion that demands everyone's money and attention.' After a moment's consideration, she added 'probably not to nice to minorities, either.'

The temple (and nearby village) were still a few hours away, so Ida had a while to survey the new planet she was stuck (not for long, if she could help it) on.

She paused once or twice on her walk between the pines to scan samples and scan the wildlife for any differences to registered species, or to upload the new information to her database, which was wired to her ship incase her personal tech got damaged. Though very unlikely, as it was literally buried in her skin. Actually, now that she thought of it, she was a good percentage implants and enhancements, when she didn't shift them away.

Normally, Ida would have appreciated the beauty of her environment; the untouched, pristine snow, gigantic pine trees and various other wintry things were very pretty, but after two hours of slogging through the deceptively-pretty-looking white fluff, she was tired, cold, and needed a long, hot shower. Preferably before she froze to death. Or got a cold. She was still deciding on which was worse. Unfortunately for her, and her daydreams, this was a pre-technology planet, which meant there would be no showers for her for a while.

As a matter of fact, she was so relieved when she finally came across the road she was looking for (and so close to the temple too!), for a second, she seriously considered kissing the ground. Then promptly decided not to, after getting a good look at the state of the road. Which was really torn up, what with all the people moving along it. Also she was pretty sure that wasn't mud.

'Looks like everybody is heading towards the temple. I wonder what's going on over there.' Joining the flow of people (and receiving a few glares in the process), she followed the flow of the crowd into the temple, through the gigantic, ornate doors. Making her best attempt at blending in, she wished she could find somewhere quiet and unnoticeable to shift into something less noticeable, so she could spy on what was going on. She peeled off of the flow of people, all of which were heading towards what she presumed was a meeting area in the middle of the temple. Slinking down the hall, she fervently hoped that no-one would see her, and that no one would figure out she didn't belong.

While attempting to get to what seemed like a relatively-unused portion of the temple, she began to hear what sounded like clanking. It turned out that the noise was guards, or knights, running around, questioning people, and ordering everyone they found to go to the main area, as someone called 'the divine' was missing. She sped up, not really wanting to see what would happen to her if she was caught evading the guards.

'Making my way downtown, walking fast' more guardsmen ran through the halls, 'walking faster.' Mentally cackling, she snuck her way down the halls, occasionally ducking into alcoves and around corners to avoid guards.

Finally, she entered an unused portion of the temple, judging by the slight layer of dust on everything around her, though not as much as she would have expected from a building of this size.

Pausing for a second to scan the architecture (never a bad time for that!), she realized how hard it would be to clean all of the nooks and crannies of the finely-sculpted statues, which reached upwards, towards the ceiling. Slowing down to a comfortable stride, she took some time to really look at the things around her. 'There are lots of statues of this one woman. Perhaps she is their head goddess, or something similar. I have no idea how this system of belief works. Though, it does look remarkably similar to that one old religion from home. Now what was it called... Ah yes! Christianity.' Actually, now that she thought about it, a lot of things in this

temple-church-thing she was in, really resembled the old christian faith. She'd seen photos of what the places of worship used to look like, and these really had some resemblance, except instead of statues of a man everywhere, it was statues of a woman. 'Well, it's nice to see something progressive, here in fantasy LARP-ing hell.'

Maintaining her comfortable stroll, she continued along, the urgency of shifting pushed aside for documenting the similarities between cultures. Things like this always got her a big bonus.

During her scanning of a rather ornate tapestry, her ears picked up what sounded like a scuffle from one of the nearby rooms.

Swiftly closing her windows, she slid her daggers out from their holsters, and crept towards where she thought the disturbance came from.

When she heard the deep timbre of a man, and then a woman's scream, her thoughts jumped to the worst possible scenario, and she burst through the double doors, into the room.

"What's going on here?" She shouted, trying to take in the situation before her... Wait, what exactly is going on here?

So, there's a woman in some pretty fancy gear being held up by red light coming from these other people in some nice-looking armour, and the woman's being... Tortured somehow by a glowy, red orb held by a very tall, mutilated (I mean, he had red spikes sticking out of him, you can see his ribs, and then there's this weird rotting furry pauldron thing going on) individual, who didn't seem too happy at her intrusion into whatever was going on (which, considering there's a woman being held hostage, probably isn't good).

While the suspicious-looking character was distracted by her appearance, the woman yanked her arm free of the binds the others had put her in, and smacked the sparking red orb the giant was holding towards her out of his hands, across the floor towards Ida.

Darting towards it, she scooped it up before it could get far. Unfortunately, the orb must have still been releasing energy, because when she picked it up, it started to electrocute her. She found she was unable to release it, her hand clenching the orb as at fried her nerves, the electricity being conducted and amplified by her implants.

While it was shocking her, the giant's face twisted with rage, and it (he?), lunged towards her, only to be blown back by a wave of energy the orb released, blasting her backwards, slamming her head onto stone, and knocking her out cold.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the crackling that woke her up.

She jolted awake, face-down on the ground, coughing as the mists of wherever she was invaded her lungs. Lungs heaving, she pushed herself off of the damp, hard ground, wheezing when her left arm responded with sHEER AGONY. Cradling it against her chest, clenching her fist to try and distract herself from the pain, she froze when she heard the crackling again. It was coming from her hand. Slowly uncurling her hand from her chest, she held it out in front of her in shock.

It had what appeared to be a diagonal scar on it, except the scar was somehow bright green, and _glowing_ (and crackling, as previously mentioned) _._ Actually, now that she thought about it, the mark, or whatever it was, looked kind-of like one of those interdimensional tears that she came across while travelling through dark space, once every while. _Weird._

Since it wasn't really hurting her at the moment, apart from a strange tingling sensation, she lowered her hand to her side, shook her head, and started to walk in what seemed like a promising direction. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the second she turned around she was blasted in the face with bright light, which just so happened to be coming from the top of a _very strange looking structure._ While she was on the topic of everything looking strange, she was trying _really_ hard not to think about why everything was green/black, and about how things were just floating and _all weird and shereallywasn'tgoingtogointothisrightnow._ Instead, what she did was start towards the source of light, and try to figure out how she was going to get up there without falling and breaking something vital. ' _Like my spine.'_

When she reached the base of the ramp...thing leading up to the (presumably) portal back to some semblance of normalcy, she started hearing scuttling sounds behind her. Turning around to try and see what they were and how close they were, she didn't spot anything for a couple seconds unti- _ohgodno._ Immediately spinning back around, she bolted, scrabbling at handholds as she ascended as fast as she could.

As she was scrambling her way up the near-vertical platform, she started to hear a woman above her, screaming at her to move faster, that they needed to leave _now, or else something worse than the things chasing her would show up._ This obviously made her move a great deal faster, though at the minor sacrifice of her previously pristine gloves. ' _Thank goodness I decided to get some gloves, as well. Otherwise I don't think I'd even_ have _fingernails anymore.'_

Now that the woman was within sight, she realized that this was the priest(ess) who was being held hostage earlier.

"The demons!" The woman shrieked, after glancing behind Ida.

" _While the motivation is very much so appreciated, I'd really rather not know what they are!"_ Ida screeched back, increasing her scrabbling against the rocks, getting closer and closer with each movement. The woman reached down towards her, extending her hand as far as she could without toppling over the edge. Ida latched on, and the woman pulled her up, with a considerable amount of strength, seeing as she looked like she was at least in her 70s.

"Thanks." Ida panted, taking a slight breather, as she was most definitely _not_ a sprinter in this form "I needed that."

"You are welcome. Now come, we must leave this place before the demons catch up to us." The priestess replied, turning and beginning to run towards the tear, which was presumably their ticket out of... wherever they were. Ida also started to sprint towards the tear, as the creatures were getting uncomfortably close, judging by the noise they were making. She booked it, passing the priestess, yelling at her to keep running, but only looking back once she heard a scream. Turning, she lunged towards the priestess, grabbing at her hands, and trying her hardest not to let her get dragged away by the creatures. After a brief struggle, the woman looked up at her, resignation in her gaze.

"Go." The priestess released her grip on Ida's hand, and was dragged off into the void. Realizing that the priestess had sacrificed her life to save Ida, she stared for a second, before turning, and jumping into the rift.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time she woke up (Ida really had to stop black out like this, she really didn't want it to become a habit), she was sitting in a dungeon, surrounded by guards who were pointing their swords at her, with her hands shackled together. Woozily, she stared at her fists, trying to reorient herself before attempting any negotiations with her wardens. Turning the marked hand over, trying to see if the scar she saw earlier actually existed, or was just a hallucination, she stared in confusion and slight elation at the unblemished palm. _She could have sworn it-ah, there we go._

After this realization, Ida figured it would probably be a good idea to take inventory. One of the only good things that she woke up to, was the fact that they hadn't figured out how to take her sheathes off of her arms, though they had obviously taken her satchel, as that didn't require too much brainpower. Scar on her palm crackling away, Ida's head shot up when the doors in front of her slammed open, and two women walked in. The guards sheathed their swords, and withdrew as the short-haired, angry-looking one stepped towards her, and started to circle, while the redhead in the form fitting armour just stood there, glaring.

"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now." The angry one stopped behind her, leaning over her shoulder to speak in her ear. Leaning back up, she circled back around, stopping in front of her. "The conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead... Except for you." She tilted her head then, looking up at the angry woman, and the redhead, both glaring at her. ' _I think I'm just not going to say what happened, because I'm not entirely sure what they'll do to me.'_

"And I suppose you think I'm the one responsible." ' _Nailed it.'_ The angry one jolted forwards at her, grabbing her glowing hand, shoving it in her face.

"Explain _this."_ She snarled, before shoving the hand back down to Ida's lap.

"I can't. Believe me. No matter how much I'd like the know what the glowy mark of doom is doing on my hand, I don't." As Ida continued, the two women got progressively angrier, and the black-haired one's face twisted with rage. The redhead just continued to glare, though with considerably more venom than before.

"What do you mean, _you can't?"_ Angry woman growled, continuing her circling.

"I mean that I have no idea what it is, or how it got there!" She declared. Obviously this hit a sore spot with her interrogator, and she lunged towards Ida, beginning to shake her, attempting to find out if she shook Ida hard enough, maybe answers she liked would fall out.

"You're Lying!" The woman snarled, gripping her shoulders so hard, they began to lose feeling. The redhead gently pushed her away from Ida, back towards the door, before turning and looking back at Ida.

"We need her, Cassandra." She stated, although why Ida was needed, and what she was needed for, she didn't exactly know (and wasn't sure she wanted to).

"So, what happens now? You obviously don't think I'm innocent, and somehow I get the feeling that letting me go isn't exactly an option." Shrugging, she tilted her head and made her best attempt at smiling innocently. It didn't work too well, and the women stared at her in both disbelief that she actually tried that and disgust at her flippancy. The redhead stepped away from the doorway, and padded closer to her amazingly quietly, considering she had _thigh-high_ armoured boots.

"Do you remember what happened? How this began?" Ah, yes. The classic interrogation starter. Though this woman looked at lot more willing to resort to cruel and unusual methods than Cassandra, who seemed to prefer brute force. Alright, now she had to start getting creative, and get her game face on, because she redhead looked like she could sniff out a liar from a mile away. ' _Well, if it all goes horribly, horribly wrong, I guess I could always turn into a dragon, or something equally terrifying for the people here.'_

"I remember running. These _things_ were chasing me, and then... A woman?" ' _Hell if I know. This has been a very long day for me, and I'm pretty sure I've suffering from multiple occasions of blunt force trauma.'_ Doing her best to look innocent, and actually _trying_ this time, not just bullshitting, as seen earlier, she tried her hardest to play the 'confused amnesiac', hoping the redhead wouldn't be able to sniff out her lie.

"A _Woman?_ " She sounded confused, as though she had not considered that someone other than Ida was involved.

"She reached out to me, but then..." Trailing off, hoping they'd interpret this as her not knowing , as she could only successfully bullshit her way through things before she started to fuck up the details.

"Go to the forward camp, Leliana." So _that_ was her name! Ida thought she was just going to have to call her 'redhead' forever. "I will take her to the rift." Cassandra turned around, and unshackled Ida from the ground, although she did leave Ida's hands tied together. Got to have some control over the prisoner, after all.

"What _did_ happen? I can't remember anything." Looking up at Cassandra as she helped her up. Still making a valiant attempt at innocence (and mostly succeeding).

"It... Would be easier to show you." Cassandra sighed, sounding defeated. ' _Well. That can't be good, if she has to show me, rather than explaining it. Got to be something big.'_

"Thanks for helping me up, by the way." At saying this, Cassandra almost swung back around, looking very surprised that the prisoner she had been harassing not five minutes ago, was thanking her for something as inconsequential as helping her onto her feet. Ida cracked a smile when she saw the look of surprise, voicing that "well, there's no point in being rude to the people who have my life in their hands. And you _did_ help me off the ground, where you could have very easily left me there."

"...You are welcome. Now come, we must move." After uttering this, she turned back around, and began to lead Ida out of what she realized was a dungeon. They walked a short distance underground, before turning and going up a flight of stairs, out into what looked like a smaller version of the church she had seen earlier. While Ida was walking, she noticed a _very strange_ height difference between her, and Cassandra. Where she would have once been around nose height, she was now only shoulder height. _Very_ suspicious. But as she could not find a mirror, and she couldn't shift here, she would have to stay like this for now.

Following Cassandra through the building, they soon exited through a large set of double doors, not unlike the ones she had burst through in the fancy temple, earlier on. They were promptly greeted by glaring (at her) and a _giant fucking hole in the sky holyshit this was so not her day._


End file.
